20 Slang

1. J'hallucine
2. Genre
3. Je m'en fous
4. Chelou
5. Je kiffe
6. Du coup
7. C'est ouf
8. Keum
9. Meuf
10. Naz
11. En faite
12. Fait chier
13. Franchement
14. Space
15. C'est clair
16. Bordel [de merde]
17. Ringuard
18. Rien à battre
19. C'est lourd
20. Laisse tomber

Photo features Paris based rock group BB Brunes

Comments

[suzanne]

what's genre? and space? i am no longer down with the kids, Evidemment

[adrian]

genre is to young parisians what like is to young americans.

[daniel]

little miss florence foresti seems to have the slang down and under
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgZVxYpv5A8

[Ana]

Space (to be pronounced in English with a French accent) means wierd - out of this world / off in space.

[lauren]

why did you post these without translations? dont make no sense.

[suzanne]

thought it was too boring, it's more fun seeing what one knows and what is new, no? Feel free to add your personal translations as they are quite open to interpretation, anothe reason to have no translated.

[LIZZIE]

I still dont understand en faite, eventhough i hear it like 48 times a day..

[adrian]

en fait, as far as I can tell, is an exact translation for "in fact"

[Ana]

it also can be used to say "actually"

[Jon]

Almost none of these words are actual slang, but simply everyday words. Most of them have been used at least through the last century, i.e. "genre", which can be found in Blaise Cendrars' novel "La main coupee" used in the same manner as "young Parisians" use it today. The title of this list should instead be "Street French", or something along those lines. If you wanted a list of slang, you should have kept going with "meuf" and "ouf", changed "lourd" to "relou", etc.

[adrian]

we should definitely add "casse-toi"

anyways:

slang
1   /slæŋ/
–noun
1. very informal usage in vocabulary and idiom that is characteristically more metaphorical, playful, elliptical, vivid, and ephemeral than ordinary language, as in "Hit the road."

On the scale used to indicate a word's status in the language, slang ranks third behind standard and colloquial (or informal) and before cant.

None of the words in this list can be used in a formal setting, so they are correctly defined as slang.

Slang does not adhere to a historical limitation, merely to the fact that in common culture it is considered informal and inappropriate for formal usage.

"Street French" doesn't really connote anything because it doesn't address or define any particular vernacular or colloquial area - what 'street' and what 'french' are you referring to exactly? Lyon? Lille?

Putaing, Mec!

[Jon]

Yes, "du coup", "franchement" and "en fait" are all acceptable in a 'formal' setting. They are just used a lot in everyday French conversation as well. Also, "j'hallucine", "c'est clair", "laisse tomber" and "genre" are all used in everyday conversation, but always in their literal meaning. And "je m'en fous", "bordel" and "fait chier" are simply standard expletives.

I see you like definitions:
1: language peculiar to a particular group: as a: argot b: jargon
2: an informal nonstandard vocabulary composed typically of coinages, arbitrarily changed words, and extravagant, forced, or facetious figures of speech

But you yourself are also capable of reflecting on how people actually use the word "slang" and making an independent judgment on its use.

So when you see a list that advertises itself as "20 slang" and most of the words/phrases are used literally and universally, it's a bit disappointing. For example, in English, when your friend's mannered father wants to laugh disapprovingly at your raunchy joke, they might also say: "Really, now!" This is the exact same usage as "franchement", and it doesn't really seem like slang.

I'm not sure why you bothered saying that "street french" doesn't specify a specific location, neither does "slang" - they are equally mute historically and geographically. I think the common problem is that both resulted from only a fraction of a second of thought.

Anyway, it's the article that suffers as it's merely an amorphous list of commonly used phrases and verlan words. It would have been more interesting if it had accomplished a more precise task, like 20 verlan words, 20 stories of familiar words (deconner would have been good here, used to mean joking around, comes from the act of exiting a vagina, though no one ever thinks of this when using the word), etc.